when it rains it pours - KAYLOR

five

A month passed. Karlie's fashion line was beginning to get some recognition. Everyone loved her water angel idea. It was "very high street" and "very topical". She had Taylor to thank. And God, was she thankful for Taylor.

Having her around was like living with a rainbow that laughed and smiled and asked a million questions every day. Taylor drew on all the doors with her crayons. Karlie didn't mind. Because the drawings were always of her and Taylor. And they brightened up her home.

Taylor planted her shiny spoons all around the house. Sometimes Karlie would find them under her pillow or stuffed into the bread bin. Occasionally Taylor would pop a few spoons into her cold baths. One time Karlie found a handful buried beneath the soil of the large potted plants in her little roof garden. Taylor said she was planting a spoon tree and that it was going to grow soon. Karlie said she couldn't wait.

Sometimes they visited Cara and Poppy, and Taylor would watch The Little Mermaid with Spoons the horse in her lap. Cara let Taylor watch an episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Taylor was amazed at seeing some of the ponies had wings just like her. She cut out her very own paper ones and taped them to Spoons. She made him fly majestically around Cara's apartment and Poppy took Polaroids of her. Karlie kept her favourites in the cardholders of her wallet.

Taylor's bedroom became more Taylor. The blonde drew on the pastel peach walls in deep pinks and neon blues. She drew Karlie. She drew Spoons the horse. She drew actual spoons. And she kept actual spoons in a line along her windowsill.

A mountain of golden chocolate bar wrappers purposefully built up in one corner of her room. Taylor said she was building Shiny City. Karlie let her do it because she could. Because she was Taylor. And Taylor did things like this.

But along with the candy wrappers and the drawings and the spoons, with Taylor came happiness. Karlie was so endlessly happy with Taylor in her life. She had another reason to wake up in the morning. A reason that made her feel so unexplainably blessed, blessed to be existing alongside such a wonderful soul.

Karlie loved Taylor.

She was not afraid to feel that. But she dreaded the day she would have to let her go.

The second month of the elongated flooding came. It was the end of the first week, a Saturday. Karlie had overslept. She lay in bed on her side and stared out her window at a seagull that was staring back. He cocked his little head the side and pecked at Karlie's window. Karlie squinted her gaze at him. If there was one thing she couldn't stand about the flooding, it was the seagulls. Or, flying rats as she called them.

She was about to finally stand up and shoo it away when she heard the familiar squeaking of Taylor's plastic toy cart rolling down across the hallway floor and into Karlie's room. She dropped the handle and took Spoons the horse from his seat. Karlie smiled as she felt Taylor crawl in behind her and press her nose to her back.

"Good morning," Karlie mumbled tiredly into her pillow.

"Good morning," Taylor said. "Good morning," she said again, in a funny voice she used for Spoons.

"Good morning, Spoons," Karlie added. She rolled over and draped her arms around Taylor's back, just below her wings. She pulled the blonde in and hugged her close. Taylor nuzzled herself close, Spoons the horse tucked between them.